|
CounterPunch
March 15,
2003
"They
Can See!"
Why Certain
Liberals Love the War
by PABLO MUKHERJEE
Writing in The Guardian, U.K., on March 11, George
Monbiot raises the question about the blindness of the 'liberal'
interventionists who refuse to see the war against Iraq as a
part of US bid for global 'Full Spectrum Dominance'. Here, I
will argue that the 'liberal' interventionists are not blind,
but fully conscious of US motives. Their interests are identical
with that of the American Republican extreme right. Under the
cloak of liberalism (or even 'radicalism' as in the case of Nick
Cohen, columnist for The Observer) they seek to realise the old
vision of an empire where the sun never sets. Whereas the British
attempt died a lingering death over two world wars and the political
independence of its colonies after 1947, the 'New American Century'
with its technological and military superiority, promises the
ultimate fulfilment of this dream.
The war on Iraq has certainly produced
a bewildering array of 'liberal' positions. The interventionists
believe that whatever the cost, the invasion of Iraq is, in the
words of Nick Cohen, 'the only way to peace' (March 2, The Observer).
A murderous tyranny will be overthrown, Iraqis liberated, one
name on the axis of evil crossed off. Let us examine the ideological
roots of this argument. Robert Kagan has achieved fame with
his book Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World
Order, and he is one of the signatories of the Project for the
New American Century established in 1997. In an article called
'The Healer' published by The Guardian on March 3, he clearly
spells out the vision of this new liberalism. Kagan's dividing
of a 'Kantian' Europe living for the ideal of perpetual peace
and a 'Hobbesian' America still clued into the conflictual nature
of global reality has attracted lots of attention. What is more
revealing, I think, is Kagan's division of a post-modern Europe
and a 'modern and pre-modern world' that threatens it. The latter
does not, of course, include the US, but Asia, Middle-East, Africa
and Latin America. Citing Robert Cooper, once a 'top official'
of the British Foreign Office, Kagan advocates an international
double standard of conduct:
Among themselves, Europeans "may
operate on the basis of laws and open cooperative security".
But when dealing with the world outside Europe, "we need
to revert to the rougher methods of an earlier era--force, pre-emptive
attack, deception, whatever is necessary". This is Cooper's
principle for safeguarding society: "Among ourselves, we
keep the law, but when operating in the jungle, we must also
use the laws of the jungle."
Kagan not only approves of this, but
thinks the US is the indispensable force needed by Europe to
achieve this order of things. As the inheritor of European imperialist
mantle, it deals with the jungle on a regular basis, while Europe
wishes to forget about it. Together, they can work to keep the
barbarians at bay by enforcing a global double standard.
What are the key weaknesses of this argument?
Obviously, this is an inherently racist vision that divides the
world between civilised, peace-loving US/Europe and the rest
of savage humanity dwelling in jungles who can only understand
the language of force. But this ethical point is far from being
the most dangerous part of this argument. Kagan/Cooper's worldview
has a venerable lineage stretching right back to the days of
European imperial might where this 'necessary' double standard
was invoked to rationalise the violent subjugation and oppression
of three-quarters of humanity. Philip Meadows Taylor captured
this mood in his 1865 novel Ralph Darnell, where his hero Robert
Clive says this about Indians "Among Gentoos and Moors--who
look more to the effects of physical than moral power than you
are accustomed to do in a free country like England--tis only
by showing ourselves prepared to resist and overcome any attempts
at oppression, that we can insure that weight and respect.power
can alone insure us respect". When Charles Grant delivered
his impassioned plea to the British parliament for increased
intervention in India, he cited exactly the 'moral' difference
between civilised Europe and savage Asia that is echoed in Kagan
and Cooper's thinking: "in the worst part of Europe, there
are no doubt great numbers of men who are sincere, upright and
conscientious. In Bengal, a man of real veracity and integrity
is a great phenomenon." Grant, like many of our contemporary
liberals, was also an interventionist abroad. And the justification
of that interventionism (with all its brutal consequences) was
derived on precisely the moral and political double standard
that lies at the heart of Kagan's world view.
Of course, one need not limit the examples
to British imperialism. French, Portuguese, Dutch, Belgian,
German, Italian imperial efforts were based precisely on the
vision of a civilised Europe that has to play by the law of the
jungle in Africa, India, China, Latin America. This language
and practice was adopted by the US in its wars throughout the
20th century, whether they were 'proxy/dirty' wars in Latin America
and the far-east, or direct invasions of Vietnam, Laos, Grenada,
Panama. Ethically racist and historically imperialist, this
ideology of liberal interventionism is also dangerous because
it deliberately ignores the structural causes that reduces large
parts of the world to zones of poverty, conflict, massive degradation
of human life, social inequality and corresponding rise in violence.
It hides the fact that it was the function and aim of empires
to keep the majority of the world savage and lawless in order
to exist as a relatively prosperous and law abiding entity, although
the unravelling of this aim was hideously demonstrated in two
world wars. Currently, liberal interventionists refuse to talk
about the new imperial imperatives behind the US drive to war
against the 'axis of evil'. With the sinister glow of civilisers
in their cheeks, they proclaim loudly about the end of tyranny
and spread of democracy, while they deliberately ignore the massed
evidence of the miserable failure of these aim. Afghanistan
and Kosovo are bandied around as beacons of the new world order.
Well, as Luke Harding reports in last week's U.K. Observer,
Afghanistan has fallen rapidly back to feudal warlordism and
Hamid Karzai's own life is heavily dependent on his international
body guards. Kabul may have become an international city under
the protection of UN forces, but in the provinces the warlords
rule just as before. American special troops still work to mop
up the Taliban. They managed to call in an air strike on an
Afghan village two weeks ago, causing heavy civilian casualties.
Pashtun anger bubbles away barely beneath the surface. In time
honoured fashion, Afghan tribal and ethnic politics has made
use of foreign power to achieve a change in the status Quo under
the Taliban. There is certainly no democracy. As for Kosovo,
western media in general has contrived to ignore its post-war
reality. Not a word about the reverse ethnic cleansing that
saw the Kosovo Serbs encouraged to leave with a help of grenades
and fire. Not a word about the effect of these returnees to
Serbia. On the morning of March 13, the world woke up to the
news of the assassination of the Serb Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic.
The effects of a moral war in the Balkans are beginning to be
felt.
The US state today, in the tradition
of European empires in the 19th century, is not interested in
'exporting' liberation or democracy or nation building. Its
administration is committed to achieving global domination both
militarily and economically. As Monbiot shows, its Afghan invasion
was undertaken to set up forward bases in Central Asia--from
Pakistan to Georgia- some of whose leader's democratic credentials
and human rights abuses rival that of Saddam Hussein. You won't
find many US forces peacekeeping in Afghanistan. Moreover, it
needs to keep a chain of conflict erupting throughout the world,
precisely to enforce the borders between savagery and civilisation.
Through international monitory bodies and its own raw military
might, it leads the enforcement of structural inequalities that
is the basis of violence (Iraq, and indeed Bin Laden's Jihadis,
for example were armed, funded and given ideological credence
by the US in the closing stages of the Cold War). It is in the
interest of the industrial-military nexus that runs the US government
to stoke 'manageable' conflicts globally. It provides the rationale
for the permanent global dominance it aims for.
The liberal interventionists then, have
always worked hand in glove with empire. In the 19th century,
they urged for civilising missions across the globe and worked
to obscure the true aims of those missions. Today, they dream
on about the final solution of global conflicts, paradoxically,
through military interventions led by the US. The technologies
and the modus operendi of the imperium has changed, its ideological
technique hasn't. It still depends on constructing a vision
of a law-abiding and civilised US-European entity (although Germany
and France may find themselves outside soon) and the jungle outside.
It then works to achieve that vision by enforcing inequalities
and violence that makes that vision a reality.
But what are the options? cry our liberal
interventionists. It is all very well analysing how Al-Qaida
and Saddam came to be. Now that they are here, what can one
do about it except wage war? Quite apart from the fact that
given the nature of the US imperium, this is a recipe for the
deadly Orwellian situation of 'unending war for unending peace',
it ignores the possibility of taking up genuinely courageous
long term, truly international and largely peaceful measures
that are already available by the dint of several Peace studies
institutes and think tanks. In the case of Iraq, for instance,
there are a series of measures available including ending of
the sanctions, permanent inspections, inspections monitoring
the 'human rights' abuses within the country, and negotiating
the right of the Iraqi refugees to return. With concerted international
effort, and without constant US scuppering of the plans, all
these aims are eminently achievable. As Hans Blix constantly
points out, the weapons inspections are working. But this doesn't
suit the US administration whose aims were stated in a Project
for the New American Century document in 2000--"the need
for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends
the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein [it is necessary for]
maintaining global US pre-eminence".
Liberal interventionists identify with
US state interests in their unwillingness to lend support for
international peaceful resolution of conflicts (both Kosovo and
Afghanistan were littered with the rejection of diplomatic solutions).
But again they cry, 'what about the Iraqis under Saddam? Is
not their liberation the price we pay for US global dominance?'
I must admit their sudden concern for Iraqis and Kurds is a trifle
surprising, since not only were they largely unconcerned about
their fates under Saddam till last year, but following their
logic, we may as well take up the cry - what about Chechens under
Russia and its puppet regime, what about Tibetans under the Chinese,
or the Palestinians under the Israeli occupation, the Kurds under
Turkey, the people under repressive and dictatorial governments
in Algeria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia to name but a few? Have not
the Pentagon plans to occupy Iraq and its oilfields and run it
in conjunction with the Ba'ath party officials already been rejected
in alarm by the Iraqi Congress in exile and the Kurds of northern
Iraq? Post-Saddam Iraq, if the Pentagon has its way, is going
to be much worse that post-Taliban Afghanistan. Not a democracy,
certainly, but a military occupation. Not enjoying liberty,
but a change of masters.
The test for European and American liberalism
has always been empire. Under the jargon of freedom, democracy
and liberty, has always lurked the belief in the double standard
advocated by Robert Kagan. Liberal interventionists believe
that civilisation and law are features that are largely absent
in the world outside US and Europe. They believe that force
is the only way to deal with the barbarians. They work to obscure
the role of the civilised world in enforcing inequality and ensuring
future conflicts. They promote deliberate historical falsifications--in
the face of public and resolute support of Tony Blair's stance
on Iraq by Ian Duncan Smith and virtually every member of senior
Conservative party, Nick Cohen argues 'If war was about oil,
conservatives wouldn't oppose it.' (March 2, The Oberver) The
Conservatives are not opposing it. From Aznar in Spain to Berlusconi
in Italy and the Rumsfeld-Wolfwowitz -Cheney gang in Washington
and Duncan Smith in Britain they are supporting it. Perhaps
Mr Cohen wishes to protect his 'radical' label by obscuring how
his position in identical with that of Ian Duncan Smith. Robert
Kagan's 'healer' is Tony Blair, whose attempts to win Europe
to a hawkish position on Iraq he praises as an effort to 'advancing
an international liberal order in the years and decades to come'.
As this advancement of international liberal order depends on
being at war with the 'barbarians', we can dispense with the
rhetoric of universal liberty and democracy. Try as the liberal
interventionists may, their position at the heart of empires,
whether European or British, is too glaring to hide. They are
not blind, they see and their vision is already uniting the globe
against them.
Pablo Mukherjee
teaches at the University of Newcastle. He can be reached at:
Pablo.mukherjee@ncl.ac.uk
Yesterday's
Features
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream (Interview)
Jason Leopold
Rumsfeld and Bush Sr. Opposed 1989 UN Investigation of Saddam
for Human Rights Violations
Josh Ruebner
An
Open Letter to My Former Dean, Paul Wolfowitz (and Other "Court"
Jews)
Mitchel Cohen
The
Gulf War 12 Years Later: Why Class Matters
Carlos Fuentes
The Insulting Insinuations of the Bush Regime
Fareed Marjaee
The Road to Jerusalem Goes Through Baghdad
Rick Giombetti
The Savagely Soft Underbelly
of the Anti-War Movement: Misquided Faith in the UN
Rich Procter
Rove Memo: How to Launch a War
Ritt Goldstein
Oil
War: the Smoking Guns
Website of the Day
Give
War a Chance: the Anti-Peace Anthem
Keep CounterPunch
Alive:
Make
a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online!
home / subscribe
/ about us / books
/ archives / search
/ links /
CounterPunch Available Exclusively
to Subscribers:
- Turkish Delights: a Pre-War Diary by Tariq Ali;
- The Plot to Frame the
Zapatistas: Talkers
and Cowards;
- Drugging Kids: The Plague of Neuroleptics;
- The Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal:
a New Investigation.
Remember, the CounterPunch website is
supported exclusively by subscribers to our newsletter. Our worldwide
web audience is soaring , with about seven million hits a month
now. This is inspiring, but the work involved also compels us
to remind you more urgently than ever to subscribe and/or make
a (tax deductible) donation if you can afford it. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe
Now!
home / subscribe
/ about us
/ books
/ archives
/ search
/ links
/
|
Take a Bite Out of Phil Knight's Bottom Line: Buy No Sweat Apparel!
March 8 /
9, 2003
Edward Said
Who's
In Charge?
Bruce Jackson
Elegy
for Two Giraffes and a Zebra
Perry Anderson
The Casuistries of Peace and
War
Joanne Mariner
Patriot
Act II's Attack on Punishment
William Lind
A Warning from Clausewitz on 4th Generation Warfare
Sam Husseini
Why
So Long for Iraq to Comply? Follow the Policy
Forrest Hylton
Business as Usual in Bolivia?
David Lindorff
Race and the Death Penalty in Pennsylvania
Ben Tripp
Is There
a Eurologist in the House?
Anthony Gancarski
W's Personal Jesus
Jon Elmer
An Interview with William Blum
Douglas Valentine
The Clash of the Icons
Norman Madarasz
Radical Politics and the Writer:
Maurice Blanchot
Gordon Solberg
There's
Got to be a Better Way
Poets' Basement
Guthrie, Engel, Bernard
Weekend Website
The
White House
February 28,
2003
Alexander
Cockburn
Meet
the New Yorker's Chief Hack: Jeffrey Goldberg
Saul Landau
Now
It's Personal
Michael Neumann
A Plea for Hysteria
Karima Bennoume
The UN: Tool for Peace or War?
The Black
Commentator
The Rev. Sharpton and the Soul of the Democrats
Jennifer Loewenstein
Don't Turn Off the War
Richard Levins
Cuba's Biological Weapons: Why the World Needs More of Them
M. Shahid Alam
Is This a Clash of Civilizations?
Clay Conrad
Juries
and Judges: What's Relevant?
Ben Tripp
Speaking in Tongues: a Guide to Gibberish in the Age of Bush
Eliot Katz
To Declare Preemptive War is to Declare a Bankrupt Imagination
Kurt Nimmo
Paying Through the Nose to Kill Iraqi Kids
Matt Vidal
George W. Bonaparte
Mark Zepezauer
Why the Right Hates America
Mickey Z.
The Anti----War Talk I Never Gave
Jerry Kroth
Jung and the Space Shuttle Revisited
Shyam Oberoi
Chronicle of a War Foretold
Ron Jacobs
What If the Firebombing of Baghdad Were a Nightclub Fire?
Poets' Basement
Eliot Katz and Jim Cohn
Website of
the Weekend
Defense
Tech
Read
Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
|